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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Who Will Weep for the Loss of the Lives of Black Women and Girls?

I look down at my hands and they are covered
in blood, and there is blood on my clothes. And I don’t know where the blood is
coming from. My heart beats wildly in my chest. Whose blood is this? I wonder. Then I wake up. I’m in my room.
There is no blood. I was dreaming. The nightmare has ended. But my breathing is
heavy. And I can’t slow down the pounding in my chest even though I’m wide
awake. The feeling follows me throughout the day.

My heart feels
heavy—like it’s weighted down with a cement block tossed into the ocean. No
matter how much I try, I can't seem to lift my spirits. I see Her bloodied body
pop up in my news feed. I am startled, and then I quickly press hide. And then I
am angry: angry at the insensitive asshole who took the picture and posted it,
and angry that I didn’t report it to Facebook for being offensive. I guess I
was shocked that the photo was even there.

Jessica Hampton

A young
woman is dead. She's dead because a man felt entitled. She's dead because she
said no. She's dead because he stabbed her in broad daylight, on a train while
people watched. She's dead because people didn't try and intervene. They live
streamed the savage attack, and posted photos of her bloodied dead body on social
media before her family was even notified. News reports say the family found
out via social media. Her name was Jessica Hampton She was 25 and the mother of
a young daughter.

Pamela Johnson

This
story really bothers me. I don’t know
if it’s because of the callousness of not only the killer, but the bystanders
as well. I don’t if it’s because it happened in the middle of the day, or
because it’s the third senseless killing of a Black woman in Chicago in a
little over a month. There was 32 year-old Pamela Johnson
who was killed fleeing would be robbers. She was hit by a truck. There was 49
year-old Yvonne Nelson who was exiting Starbucks and took a bullet to the
chest that wasn't meant for her. And now this. I’m a Black woman; I
live in Chicago. And I’m afraid.

Yvonne Nelson

Is my anxiety because these women
were killed in the city where I live? A city plagued by violence. That’s part
of it for sure. But I also experienced similiar angst when 16 year-old Amy Inita
Joyner-Francis died after being jumped in the bathroom at her high school in
Delaware, and again just recently when police found the badly decomposed body
of 40-year-old Lyntell Washington in a ditch in Louisana.

Amy Inita Joyner-Francis

The deaths of these women sit with
me. They stay with me when the media move on. They remind me of our fragile
existence as Black women and girls and our never-ending struggle to find peace in a
place in that too often tries to render us invisible or devalues us if we are seen at all.

Lyntell Washington

There is very little love for the Black woman
and girl when we are living, so I read these stories and I wonder who will weep
for the loss of the lives of Black women and girls?